Need help deciding on a new Imac for FCE

F

f64manray

Well-known member
Well, the new Imacs have been released. I'm hoping some of you experienced FCE/FCP users can help me out on the best hardware to support FCE.

I'll be shooting with the Canon 5D Mark II

I'm looking at getting the new the 3.06 GHz Imac

The big question I have is whether I should upgrade to 8 gigs of Ram. I realize FCE recommends a minimum of 4 gigs of Ram.

Will 8 gigs of Ram make it run much faster? It cost $1000.00 for the upgrade so I don't want to do it if the increased performance will be minimal.

I'll also upgrade to the ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB video card.

:dankk2:
 
DON'T by Apple RAM. Sure it works great, but paying rent is nice too.

I've purchased all my ram from OWC Other World Computing and it works flawless.

Watch that $1000 drop to $75 - $300 or something ridiculous at OWC.
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
DON'T by Apple RAM. Sure it works great, but paying rent is nice too.

I've purchased all my ram from OWC Other World Computing and it works flawless.

Watch that $1000 drop to $75 - $300 or something ridiculous at OWC.
Click to expand...

Thanks. How much will performance be increased in your opinion with 8 as opposed to 4 with HD footage?
 
Well I edited DVC pro HD on a 1.67ghz g4 with 2gb of ram for 2 years. Then a 2.1something ghz Imac with 4GB ram, and now I'm on a 2.4ghz macbook pro with 4 GB of ram.

Processor and drive speed and connections ares more important than Ram for speed. Ram lets you do more at once.

The G4 laptop with 2 GB of ram and 1.67ghz processor was PASSABLE working with HD until I had to do a bunch of compositing with motion. THen I upgraded to the imac which worked fine for editing and compositing. The new Mac Book has the same RAM as the imac did (4GB) and a .3 or so faster processor. The 4gb ram Imac was fine and the 4GB macbook is a better with it's faster processor. They say a small bump in processpr power makes a huge difference, but you won't feel Ram improvement you are doing a bunch of things at once. Having too little RAM will slow things down, but I don't know that having a lot of it makes things faster if it's unused.

If I would you I would buy an additional 4GB for $65 form OWC. Try it over the weekend. It's recommended that Ram sticks match but not always necessary. You are only risking $65 and it might be a huge bump. If you have trouble. remove the RAM and return it.

Edit: The technical details on Ram and Processor power above are "as I understand them". I'm not a hardware expert. I can tell you with authority what my work experience was like with a slower processor than yours will be and 4GB of RAM though.

If you can buy two sets of 4gb for $65 each then do that.

but I doubt it's worth $700 or $100. You might just have to quit itunes or something if you are doing an intense render. I run two browsers, FCP, entourage, Motion, CS4 Soundbooth, and Motion all at the same time and have no problems though with my 4gb abd 2.4Ghz processor.
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
Well I edited DVC pro HD on a 1.67ghz g4 with 2gb of ram for 2 years. Then a 2.1something ghz Imac with 4GB ram, and now I'm on a 2.4ghz macbook pro with 4 GB of ram.

Processor and drive speed and connections ares more important than Ram for speed. Ram lets you do more at once.

The G4 laptop with 2 GB of ram and 1.67ghz processor was PASSABLE working with HD until I had to do a bunch of compositing with motion. THen I upgraded to the imac which worked fine for editing and compositing. The new Mac Book has the same RAM as the imac did (4GB) and a .3 or so faster processor. The 4gb ram Imac was fine and the 4GB macbook is a better with it's faster processor. They say a small bump in processpr power makes a huge difference, but you won't feel Ram improvement you are doing a bunch of things at once. Having too little RAM will slow things down, but I don't know that having a lot of it makes things faster if it's unused.

If I would you I would buy an additional 4GB for $65 form OWC. Try it over the weekend. It's recommended that Ram sticks match but not always necessary. You are only risking $65 and it might be a huge bump. If you have trouble. remove the RAM and return it.

If you can buy two sets of 4gb for $65 each then do that.

but I doubt it's worth $700 or $100. You might just have to quit itunes or something if you are doing an intense render. I run two browsers, FCP, entourage, Motion, CS4 Soundbooth, and Motion all at the same time and have no problems though with my 4gb abd 2.4Ghz processor.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that was very informative. I'm just getting into video, and I want this computer to last awhile before I out grow it. It sound like 4 gigs might last awhile. I'm just hoping Rendering times are tolerable with this new Imac. I'm not sure what to expect.
 
I should say that I am not a hardware expert. The above Processor and Ram speculations are "as I understand them."

I can, however, speak with authority on my work experience with macs with slower processors than yours will have and 4GB of ram. I know there are faster machines out there, but I've never once felt it was problematic. It's way faster than the fastest (non super computer) machines were 7 years ago editing SD in my experience.
 
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